A consumer is a shopper who is sore about something - Harold Coffin
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Duke's PR team goes nuclear after bad reviews
THE PR COMPANY behind the troubled revival of the Duke Nukem game franchise has been caught retracting a knee jerk tweet in the face of decidely mixed reviews.
Duke Nukem Forever. Just writing those words in a sentence makes it so hard to assess objectively without getting involved in the legacy of 12 years of vapourware production hell.
The expectations of sagging middle-aged gamers after Randy Pitchford at Gearbox resuscitated the Duke from 3D Realms were high but the proverbial rising phoenix failed to show when most reviewers slated Duke Nukem Forever almost immediately following its release.
In place of the eighties action satire and brilliant gunplay that was Duke Nukem 3D came misogyny, scatological humour and arcane mechanics that no 2012 Gearbox veneer could fix.
Apparently even Randy Pitchford chipped in a few days before release to say it would be hard to review the game objectively without reviewers being aware of Duke's legacy. But no one was expecting the raft of awful reviews to hit Duke Nukem Forever and frustrations boiled over at the public relations company handling the release.
The Redner Group agency specialises in games and consumer technology and a rogue employee posted a tweet that the company retracted. But it was too late thanks to print screen buttons on keyboards and industrious forum members at Neogaf who took screenshots of the tweet before it was pulled.
"Too many went too far with their reviews...we r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn't based on today's venom," said Redner's tweet.
Since the retraction the employee has been forced to tweet from the company's Twitter page that he or she will be sending out a private apology to everyone and that they acted without the consent of Duke Nukem publisher 2K.
What's most worrying is the suggestion that PR companies might select only hacks or publications where they think their product will get better reviews, bumping up its score on Metacritic. In the case of this Duke release though, that would've meant only sending out only about three copies of the game. µ
Tags: SoftwareNumb thumbs
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someone needs to read a dictionary. if you don't know what a word means then don't use it.
Yeah, Duke used satire just like Michael Bay movies have substance.
Whoever wrote this article doesn't know what satire is. What a noob.
I have a question - when was there ever satire in DUKE3D?
First of all... try to understand, how the corporate wars affected the title. Publishing rights were transferred with each engine change, and after 12 years of development I've heard about 6 times, about the upcoming release date... of course, some of it was just a hoax. The developer was forced to give Duke away, because of 13 million bucks, spend on final development, and that's the amount of cash you don't want just to loose. It, somehow reminds me the making of Chineese Democracy. Duke was sentenced to fail. Expectations were damn high and don't you dare to blame Unreal Engine. What is this software capable of, you can see in Bulletstorm or Alice: Madness Returns. And, It's still UE3.
People came to realize that the demo was very different from the actual game. I think you need to go back to your base, spend some time and come back again.
Satire involves sarcastic social commentary regarding what needs to change in society. Stephen Colbert is a satirist. Duke is not. Dumb ass
The whole game is a joke. 13 years for a game????????
This game should be 99.99% perfect, but it's a letdown.
Played the demo, UE3 engine is worse ever, in 13 years they should have made a game from scratch, but no, they used an already made engine, put some textures,a story, customization, etc, all done in 2-3 months of work. All for quick profit, a commercial game on production band like many more these days.
Nobody (game makers) cares about gamers anymore, they all want a quick buck, then they complain that PC games are in decline.
The most anticipated game?
It's the most anticipated fiasco.
The comment was made by the owner of the PR company, not a rogue employee.
Someone else made a comment... Wow, a public relations company that doesn't know how to deal with the public, good luck with future endeavors. LMAO
The whole flavor of the game was satire of all things '80s action,' both movies and games.
No Duke game had satire. Do you know what satire is?